Heartbreak

Chapter Eight: A Forgotten Memory

(Thackery)

Like every year, summer had to come to an end while fall soon began. I remember it like it was yesterday being transported back in time not sitting outside on the bench at the park but back at home.

Lost in a forgotten memory where I'm five years old again and school had started a few weeks prior. I was having a hard time, struggling to make friends even in kindergarten but of course there was somewhere I fit in.

At home, it was September and my parents had invited people over. Friends and family from out of town. People I grew up around and I knew for as long as I could remember.

There, on that day under the warm sun, was somewhere I fit in around everyone and I wasn't scared about those who should scare me. I never looked at werewolves as scary monsters when they protected us. We were safe because of them my father said plenty of times and I trusted him.

There was no reason I shouldn't trust them when werewolves treated us nice. They never did anything wrong and I didn't ask too big of questions to make me scared. I only asked and had an attention span like any other five year old my age. I was curious but after a while I would forget. I would become too interested by something else amazing to take my mind off of what first caught my attention.

At five, I was naive. I was easily pleased and trusting. I believed everything I was told. I trusted my parents. I was young and gullible. Too gullible actually I didn't see what I should have even at a young age. I never questioned the strict stern voice my dad used when he tucked me in bed after the party. He told me goodnight and not to leave my room no matter what. I needed to stay inside and sleep because that was what was best for me.

He kissed me goodnight and went to my brothers room right next to mine probably saying the same thing and the next. Last I heard my father was downstairs talking to a friend and that is where dad went to afterwards I can assume. I really don't know having fallen asleep almost immediately.

Tucked in I fell asleep too tired to keep my eyes open as I drifted off to sleep without a thought. I wasn't trying to stay up either. I slept peaceful with dreams none I can remember now because I was taken away from them.

I heard a noise outside, a sound loud enough to wake me up out of a dead sleep but quiet enough to not be heard unless you had good hearing. Sound of desperation and pain for help just outside my window. Feet away in the depths of the trees surrounding all around and I stirred in bed. Trying to ignore to ignore the noises before I couldn't any longer. I couldn't lay in my bed and do nothing even though my dad told me to stay in my room. I had to do something, I wanted to know what was wrong and I did.

As I sat up, throwing my blanket off of me I moved towards the window beside my bed. Attempting to peek out into the darkness I wasn't scared of back then like I am today. I had no fear before the night but as the noise continued to go on I started to become scared. And that's why I had to get up from my bed, needing to go out there even though I didn't want to. But I needed to. I had to chance even though I was told not to because staying in my room sounded like something I would regret.

I was interested. I was curious and quietly walked over and opened the door. I made my way out knowing I had to be careful and quiet for my father not to hear. I had thought if he had heard I could ask him to look outside and make sure everything was okay. I could ask my dad to make sure nothing was wrong but as I got down the last step of the stairs and passed my parents room which was a crack open my dad was asleep and my father was no where around.

I didn't know where he was while I felt a sudden fear of maybe he's outside and he's not okay. I thought I had to go out and see if that was him out there needing to saved. And instead of waking my dad up or any of my older brothers I went out the front door of the house.

I ran out towards the woods. Trees and darkness all around me with no lights on. I was a little scared but not scared enough to head back. No, I ventured forward and that's when I heard movement in the woods. Familiar sounds of more than one werewolf roaming the woods in the middle of the night. Pounding the ground beneath them as they ran in the distance though I couldn't see them. I knew they were there, there wasn't a doubt in my mind.

The next step I decided to take slowly walking through the woods brought me into a puddle of what I thought was water. For a second I thought I went too far unable to see the best that I was in the water having gone too far. That was until I remembered it's further than where I was and a snap of a branch had me stare up.

I knew right away what I had stepped in was more than just water. It was blood and one of many puddles of blood I learned as soon as a flashlight was shinned from behind me. "Sammy! What are you doing out here?" my father said but I didn't turn back.

I didn't move frozen in time, unable to stare away at the bloody sight displayed in front of me of Arron in his wolf form with a rabbit in his mouth. Blood dripping down and I couldn't understand how someone who watched me, my parents trusted and I thought was a good person would be killing a rabbit. I was loss for words. There was nothing I could say or wanted to once I noticed in the distance now reflected off the flashlight my father held were more dead rabbits killed by werewolves we trusted and I couldn't understand why.

Everything else afterwards was a blur. I don't remember walking back into the house. I don't have a memory of my father picking me up and carrying me. I have no memory when I forgot everything. I never saw werewolves again. I didn't know they existed as if I never knew. Arron never stopped by again probably because I was too traumatized by what was right in front of me that it was best to pretend werewolves didn't exist. It was better in my father's eyes to have me know nothing. It was better to make me feel like I had to hide our secret when there were more secrets I had forgot. Life was easier with me knowing less when I couldn't handle the truth to begin with.